


Who Tells Your Story?

by ohmytheon



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hamilton - Freeform, Mentor/Protégé, Other, Parental Roy Mustang, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, Royai - Freeform, Royai kid, Team Mustang - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5390219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of FMA one-shots using the songs from the musical "Hamilton" as prompts, involving Royai, Parental!Royed, Team Mustang, Roy's early years in Eastern, Ishval, Hughes/Gracia, and more. This will encompass before canon, in between, and after. It will focus on many characters, but is very much a character study of Roy Mustang and his military career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Palaces out of Paragraphs

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve found that, when you’re hitting a wall or struggling to write something, it’s best to write something else entirely, especially when you feeling inspired for that something. It really does help get the writing juices flowing again for what you were writing originally.
> 
> Okay, so I was talking about the comparisons between FMA and the Hamilton musical, right? Well, this is a product of that and an incredible conversation with but-i-am-hellbound on tumblr. Basically, I’ll be using songs from Hamilton as prompts for one-shots. This will be pretty sporadic and is not strictly Royai, as I plan on writing about other characters, so there will be some parental!Royed, Hughes/Gracia, Ishval, Roy’s early years as a Lieutenant-Colonel in Eastern, Roy and Hughes’ friendship, Team Mustang, and more. Maybe even a little Bug might make an appearance.
> 
> This one in particular was the one that started it all and was partially inspired by a comment made by rizascupcakes. You don’t have to be familiar with the musical to read these ,as I just use the lyrics for inspiration.

_“I’m re-reading the letters you wrote me_  
_I’m searching and scanning for answers_  
_In every line for some kind of sign and when you were mine_  
_The world seemed to burn”_  
\- [Burn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CFOuGqBSEE)

Riza didn’t know what hurt more: the bold title of the newspaper article questioning, _“Is Amestris’ most eligible bachelor finally taken?”_ or the paper cut on her index finger that was bleeding freely. She swore when the blood dripped onto the black and white paper and accidentally smeared it across the picture when she went to wipe it off. Sighing to herself, she gave up on trying to clean the mess and dumped the newspaper in the trash. She wasn’t going to read the article anyways. The picture and the headline had been enough to make her feel as if her heart was in the trash as well.

Washing her hand in the sink, Riza paused, letting the near scolding hot water run over her skin. No, that wasn’t fair of her to think. She did not have a monopoly on Roy, just as it wasn’t his job to not wound her emotionally. The fact that they had decided to work together in order to pursue his goals had canceled that out. She did not have the right to say that Roy Mustang broke her heart, not anymore at least. After all, she wasn’t the silly girl left with nothing but daydreams after her father’s apprentice went off to become a soldier.

After bandaging up her finger, she fished the newspaper out of the trash bin and examined the picture. Roy did look handsome, absolutely resplendent in his suit. He was terribly photogenic. Only Fuery seemed capable of being able to take pictures of Roy when he was making a face and even then he would look more boyish than unattractive.  It was like he was incapable of taking a bad picture, even if it was candid.

This one was no different. He was in a nice dark suit with his typical white scarf, though not an overly fancy one, and he was wearing normal white gloves. The woman on his arm was stunning with rich and wavy dark hair and a dark dress that hugged her figure in all the right areas. She was looking up at Roy with such adoration on her face. For his part, his expression was cool as he gazed down at her, but Riza could spot the fondness in his dark eyes, try as she wanted to ignore it. Riza knew all of his “sisters” that were his pretend dates for information and some of his other informants that paraded about as his dates, but this lovely young woman was not familiar.

It was something that neither one of them talked about – outright refused to admit – but every now and then, some of his dates were the real thing. Roy would never claim to be a saint and she could not pretend to think as such. They were adults, after all. Thinking that he would remain celibate for any reason regarding her was not only absurd, but it was an outrageous demand that she had no right to make. It wasn’t as if she was a nun, even if she didn’t make a spectacle of her romantic life, what little she had at any rate.

No, Riza knew that this was Roy being captured on an actual date with a woman that he genuinely liked. And, even though she didn’t to read the article, upon doing so, she found that he’d gone on more than a few dates with this same woman. Her heart seized at the number – five, they’d gone on five dates – and that was when she set the newspaper down again. The most he’d ever gone on with the same girl had been three. She hadn’t exactly snooped to find this information; she merely had overheard it from a conversation between him and Hughes.

 _“You never go on more than three dates with the same girl,”_ Hughes had scoffed. _“I wonder why that is.”_

Roy had dismissed the other man, saying that it had nothing to do with the girls themselves, just that he got bored too easily or focused on his job too much and became distracted. Riza had not been about to fall into fanciful dreaming that it had anything to do with her. Despite his abhorrence towards paperwork, Roy did have a bad habit of putting all his focus on his job at times and neglecting everything else in his life. It was why the man couldn’t have a single plant in his apartment. And yet, despite that focus, he did get bored easily and would try his best to do anything but sign a single form, absolutely wasting time and energy.

However, apparently, he had not become bored by this woman and had instead become more entranced by her. That was fine. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted to be happy. Maybe, if one of them finally took a step towards that without the other, they could move past whatever this was because the truth was that “whatever this was” that was between them was absolutely nothing, could be nothing, and would always be nothing. They had signed the rights away to those three years ago when she’d agreed to follow him into hell. She had signed them away in her own blood and he had accepted the terms.

Ready to accept it and move on, Riza went to flip through the rest of the newspaper when she caught sight of an errant name in the article – _her_ name.

Now, there were a lot of things that Riza could remain calm about when others might have flipped out. She could only imagine Hughes dialing up Roy the second the newspaper hit the stands or the men on the team placing bets on how long this new relationship would last. Roy’s status as a well-known player had become standard by now and he had reveled in it for the past few years. He had been that way when they were teenagers, though he had always laughed about it back at the house.

Having her name dragged into this article about Roy’s love life, however, was not one of them. Riza gaped as she read the paragraph concerning her. The writer actually speculated on how Roy settling down might affect her, as if he knew what Riza’s feelings on the matter were. He wondered about her broken heart and if she would be able to continue following Roy once his affections for another woman became public knowledge. Would she still pine after her superior officer?

Riza’s blood boiled. It was a good thing that Roy was the Flame Alchemist and not her because otherwise she would have burned this newspaper into ashes and then hunted down the writer of this bloody ridiculous article. At the end of those questions was a comment from Roy, a proper one, stating, _“I have no comment on this matter except that Lieutenant Hawkeye is unquestionably professional and my most loyal subordinate.”_

She gripped the paper so tightly that it nearly tore until finally she crumpled it up and threw it away in the trash for good this time. The statement was true and she was glad that he’d said it, even if it was the only actual word from him in the article, but for some reason, it cut her even more. She was professional. She was loyal. She was his subordinate.

And she was nothing more than that.

Stepping into her bedroom, Riza opened her closet and began to rifle through a few boxes in the back until she found a small one. The cardboard was old and flimsy, its edges worn down. Likely it wouldn’t last through another move and she would have to find a different box for its contents. It held the only things remaining from her childhood home though, and she was loathe to put them in something new, even if it was just a box. After finding what she was looking for, she stood back up and then walked back until the back of her legs hit the foot of the bed and she sat down.

The letters in her hands were terribly precious to her. They were one of the few golden parts of her life before the military. The newest one was a little over four years old, the grainy feel of sand unable to be washed away even if it wasn’t visible; the oldest one dated all the way back to when she was twelve. Why Riza had decided to keep all of them was still beyond her when she’d never been a nostalgic person before, but for some reason, she hadn’t been able to throw away any of the correspondences between her and Roy, not even when they had been just kids. She couldn’t have known how important he would be to her then, but she hadn’t tossed them.

The first few letters were small and simple, Roy talking about his visits to his foster mother and his sisters back in Central while Riza was back at the Hawkeye Estate. He didn’t talk about his emotions much then, being only fourteen and fifteen. The most she would get was a stray line of _“I miss the quiet of the country more than I thought I would,”_ which she later knew was a code for him missing her. Eventually, he owned up to it, actually writing the words, _“I miss you,”_ but they would be placed innocuously in between other sentences that had no correlations to it, as if he’d hoped that she would overlook it.

She never had, of course. Every time Roy went back to Central to visit his family, Riza had missed him something terrible. The house had been so lonely without him and she’d felt smothered by her father’s haunting presence without Roy’s hopeful aura.

As time progressed and they got older, the letters became more open and much less formal. She could see where he became excited about something from the way his handwriting became darker from pressing the pen down too hard on the paper or when he was writing in the middle of the night and was tired from how it looked even sloppier than normal.

He was more frank about his thoughts and emotions too. _“You would enjoy it in Central”_ turned into _“I wish you could come to Central with me”_ and _“It must be weird being by yourself again”_ became _“I hate leaving you there alone; I hate not being with you”_ and _“You’ve made my apprenticeship more bearable”_ transformed into _“You’re honestly one of the brightest spots in my life and I’m so thankful for you.”_

Riza could not help but smile at the words. The older he got, the more poetic Roy tried to be, but then he would fall back into his informal attitude with her. He knew that she saw right through all of that and would laugh at any cheesiness from him. He didn’t have to pretend around her. He could be honest, even when it hurt. It had taken him two months before he’d written to her after leaving for the Academy, something that had wounded her. She had thought that maybe he’d forgotten her and hadn’t wanted to talk to her anymore. What was she to him anyways but some girl from his past?

But then his letter came out of the blue on a cold fall day. She had been so stupidly excited, smuggling the letter away before her father could see and destroy it and then walking to her favorite spot by the pond to read it. She could not say how much relief she felt as seeing his words again, reading them in his voice in her mind. It had started out so hesitant at first, like he hadn’t known what to say. The first few paragraphs made her recall his first letters to her, formal and precise, talk about his day-to-day life, nothing emotional or truly important. Yet she had been comforted to just know what he was doing and that he was okay, so that she could picture it.

And then his handwriting became rushed, slanting even more to the side, and everything he’d bottled up in the beginning of the letter began to pour out. How much he missed her, how he sometimes regretted signing up for the military even if he believed that he was doing the right thing, how alone he felt at times but how it probably couldn’t compare to how she felt. He wanted her to know that he was doing okay, and he implored her to tell him if anything went awry back at home, that he would come to her if need be.

Those words had made the newly etched lines on her back burn, but she’d ignored them then and she did now as she reread the letters. Roy had been astonished to find the fire alchemy notes on her back, but he had also been furious as well. _“Why didn’t you tell me he was doing this monstrous thing to you?”_ he had demanded heatedly, as if he could have stopped her father. _“I would have come!”_

And that was why she hadn’t told him. Yes, Roy would have come to see her if she had even written to him about her father using her as a canvas for his alchemy notes, and she would have been so grateful and happy to see him, to have his arms wrapped around her protectively, but she couldn’t do that. She hadn’t wanted to be the reason he cut his dreams off short; she hadn’t wanted to be the one to hold him back.

It was why she said and did nothing now when all these stories about Roy’s affairs and dates came to light. If any one of them panned out, she didn’t want to be the reason he pulled back. She made her own choices and he made his. As much as they were together, they were still two separate people with separate lives and he had to accept that as much as she had already.

Another letter, while he was still at the Academy, a few months before she had written to him about her father’s illness taking a turn for the worse, had her blushing even so many years later. His handwriting was sloppier than normal, and she could practically smell the whisky on it even before he admitted to writing the letter after Hughes had dragged him out to a bar with some of the other cadets. He should have been sleeping the alcohol off, but all he had been able to think about was her. Hughes kept talking about finding the love of his life, something his new friend did a lot, and Roy said that try as he might, he could not picture anyone but her.

 _“I’m sappier than Hughes is when I’m drunk,”_ Roy had written, _“but I’m torn between wishing that I had kissed you sooner and that I never had. Maybe then I wouldn’t know that I’m yours.”_

His next letter did not acknowledge the words he’d said in the previous one and had arrived before she had even managed to come up with a proper response that didn’t have her blushing to the tips of her roots. She imagined that he’d sent the letter off while still feeling the effects of the alcohol and was wholly embarrassed by his honesty with his feelings, so he wrote another quick letter to pretend as if the first one hadn’t happened. For some reason, while it was much like a denial, the action had made Riza smile even more.

The letters became sparse after that considering the changes in Roy’s life. He wrote to her about his graduation from the Academy and his taking the State Alchemist test. They were formal again, yet speckled with bits of his raw emotion and thoughts here and there, like he could not keep them from her. He moved to Central for a time, throwing out the offer for her to visit, but by then, she had joined the military academy herself and hadn’t known whether to tell him or not. Not long after, the Fuhrer had ordered State Alchemists to serve in the Ishval War of Extermination and, after a brief letter to tell her that he was being shipped off and he did not know whether he would be able to write again, his letters stopped.

He signed the last one as, _“Always yours,”_ as if afraid that he might not be able to talk with her ever again.

But would be though? Would he always be hers as he had suggested?  
That had been years ago. Roy was fond of making lofty promises and holding onto powerful dreams. He liked to think that he could fulfill them all, but the truth was that, no matter how great of a man Roy Mustang was, he was just that, a man. Some promises would be broken, some dreams turned into nightmares. They found that out the hard way in Ishval when his hopes to save people became orders to kill and he betrayed her trust when she’d given him the secrets of flame alchemy, when she became a killer instead of the nurturer she’d been growing up.

Was he still hers now? Or had they burned that away along the secrets of flame alchemy on her back?

Riza closed her eyes and gripped the bundle of letters in her hands. She wanted to burn that damn newspaper for making her think of these old feelings and she wanted to burn the letters that made them reality. She wanted to destroy them in hopes that they would eradicate any last remnants of her hopes and dreams. Neither one of them had every out right said that they loved one another, not even in their letters to each other, but it had been in every other line, unspoken and unnecessary to say aloud. She would always love him, in her own way, even if it did change like the tide over the years and varied in strength as well, letters or no.

Taking a deep breath, Riza opened her eyes and stood up. She walked back to the closet and placed the letters back in the decrepit box. Closing the lid and tucking the box away again, she closed the door and stepped out of the room. A quick glance at the clock told her that she had only a minute before she would need to leave for the office if she wanted to be on time, but then a car honking outside her apartment caused her to pause.

When she looked out the window, all she could do was sigh. There was Roy, already outside of his car and leaning against the passenger door. His arms were folded across his chest and he was drumming his fingers against his arm as he looked around in agitation. To the side of him on the street was a newspaper in complete disarray, the papers floating into the street, like it had been tossed aside haphazardly. He looked up at her window and they caught eyes. Her breath halted for a second before she held up a hand to tell him to wait and he relaxed visibly, his dark eyes softening for a second.

Riza shook her head at herself as she gathered her military jacket and began to put it on. She could push him away and give him room to move on all she wanted, but he refused to be anyone else’s but hers even when it seemed like he was someone else’s. She should have known that, but that was the one thing that was hard for her to accept.


	2. I Know that Greatness Lies in You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so torn about what to focus on when it came to this song that I’ll probably write another one for it, but I really wanted to write about Ed talking to Roy about Ishval, and it somehow devolving into Roy giving Ed indirect advice on how, no matter what Ed does, people will paint their own picture of him, especially considering that he’s growing up under the scrutiny of both the people of Amestris and the government. I’m not quite sure I got all of that, but I’m a sucker for parental!Royed, so at least I got that. I’d like to thank alcohol for being a semi-truth serum and convenient plot trope.

_“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known_  
_When I was young and dreamed of glory:_  
 _You have no control:_  
 _Who lives, who dies, who tells your story”_  
– [History has Its Eyes on You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTQxv3jzKT0)

Skulking around Central at this hour on his own probably wasn’t the best ideas, especially considering the fact that he had gotten into it with a few local thugs yesterday, but honestly Ed had just needed the space and air. He loved his brother more than anything, but every now and then, Ed felt like he was being smothered. Not by Al or anything, but more like the pressures and goals that manifested in his brother’s armored form at times.

Colonel Bastard would probably say that it something to do with some sort of existential teenage angst bullshit, but Ed was not about to admit that maybe his own hormones were turning against him in some way. He was the most brilliant alchemist of his time, not a whiny teenager that sulked in the dark and wanted to hide away from the world sometimes for no specific reason.

After getting something to eat from a late night food establishment, Ed started his way back to the hotel. If he stayed out too long, Al would get anxious. Technically speaking, he was under orders to stay inside until the criminals that he tangled with the other night were apprehended, but what his superior officers didn’t know would kill them. He didn’t think that he’d run into any of them in this part of town anyways at this time of night. Most of them were probably at home or in the dorms. It was in the middle of the week, so everyone he knew had to work tomorrow. It wasn’t like he’d run into anyone he knew at three in the morning.

“Strange, this poorly lit sidewalk doesn’t look like your hotel room,” a voice piped up from behind him.

With a piece of chicken stuffed in his mouth, Ed jumped around, hands already instinctively pressed together in case he had to act fast, but froze immediately once he spotted who had spoken. There was the Bastard himself, leaning casually against a wall, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. A rather lazy smirk crossed his face, which only caused Ed to scowl around the food in his mouth.

Swallowing the food down, Ed dropped his hands down with a hint of regret. It would’ve been nice to wipe that smirk off the older man’s face with a bit of well-placed alchemy. “Is this why you’re always sleeping in your office? You creep around Central in the middle of the night like some sort of vampire?”

“The same could be asked of you,” Mustang responded smoothly, not even rising to the insult. Ed considered it an accomplishment when he was able to get a rise out of Mustang, and the failure to do so stung. “I specifically gave you orders to stay in your room unless given an escort and yet you’re out here on your own.”

Ed waved a hand about. “Write me up for insubordination again, dock my salary, whatever.”

“And waste precious time doing paperwork on you? I don’t think so. I’ve got other things I could be doing.”

Not that Ed cared whether or not Mustang wrote him up, he could not deny that he was somewhat relieved that Mustang didn’t seem to be angry with him. If Hughes had been the one to catch him out, he probably would’ve flipped out and dragged Ed by the collar back to his hotel room and locked him up with an armed guard. He still wasn’t sure if Mustang cared if Ed died half the time he gave commands or gave Ed missions. Whenever Ed came back limping or bandaged up, Mustang would raise an eyebrow at the medical costs but say little else other than to comment on any damage that occurred.

“Well, now that we’ve settled this, I should get back to Al.” Ed turned on his heels without even properly saying goodbye and took only two steps before Mustang’s voice stilled him again.

“Without an escort? I don’t think so.”

Ed bared his teeth a little as he turned his head to glare. “Are you even suitable for that task right now?”

Mustang smiled. “Probably not.”

Harrumphing to himself, Ed watched as Mustang pushed himself away from the wall and began to walk. There was nothing about his stride that suggested he was drunk – in fact, it was straight and precise as any military step could be – but Ed could somehow tell by Mustang’s casual behavior that he’d partaken in a lot of alcohol. Also, they were standing outside of a bar in the wee hours of the morning. Still, while Mustang acted pretty careless for the most part, there was something different about it now. He seemed looser. It didn’t feel like he was wearing some sort of mask.

Mustang felt…open.

Trying not to feel awkward in the silence, Ed shoved his hands in his pockets, subconsciously mirroring Mustang, and stared straight ahead as they walked down the sidewalk together. He kept his pace quick so that he was slightly ahead of Mustang, but that didn’t seem to bother the older alchemist. In all honesty, he didn’t know how he was supposed to act when Mustang wasn’t acting entirely like himself. He didn’t know what to do. While he was quick to call Mustang a conniving, sneaky bastard, he knew that Mustang had a game that he played close to the vest and also a history that he kept an even tighter lid on.

It occurred to Ed that he didn’t really know the man walking next to him. Sure, Roy Mustang had been his commanding officer for the past year but besides the basics, Ed didn’t know him, just what he’d heard and learned from other people throughout the years. Did Mustang have any family? Why had he joined the military? What had pushed him to learn alchemy? Those three questions made up the core of who Ed was, but he had no clue when it came to his superior officer.

Ed could only think of the few things that he knew and took for granted. Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, the youngest person to pass the State Alchemist exams before Ed himself – no one knew where he had gained the knowledge of flame alchemy and he seemed to grow in power every day. Mustang was young for his position as Colonel and fluctuated between being a lazy asshole and a prideful overachiever. Despite not having ever mentioned his family, it was clear that he wasn’t full Amestrian, but he never said anything about it.

And then there was another name that Ed had found out a few months ago, the Hero of Ishval, though Ed couldn’t say how Mustang had gained the name. In his mind, Mustang did not seem like the kind of man that went about performing heroics. It sounded too selfless.

“How did you get the nickname the Hero of Ishval?” Ed blurted out.

Mustang halted, though it looked more like a cover up for stumbling. After catching the suddenly dark look that crossed Mustang’s face, Ed’s own face turned red. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that it looked as if the other man didn’t like being called a hero. That was absurd though. Being a hero was great. Just because Ed had been absorbed in alchemy books since he was a little kid did not mean that he hadn’t listened to all the stories his mom had told him about heroes and saving the day as well.

As quickly as it came though, the shadows on Mustang’s face vanished and were replaced by a blank slate. He even started to walk again. Despite the flat expression on his face, Ed thought he could see something in his commanding officer’s dark eyes, something that looked a lot like what settled in Ed’s golden eyes whenever he worried that his brother blamed him for what had happened to them. It looked a lot like shame, something that he had never seen on the Colonel’s face before.

“I ended the war,” Mustang finally answered. It wasn’t that much of an answer though; it didn’t tell Ed anything about how he had gained the nickname. One man couldn’t possibly end a war. The Ishval War had devastated many regions of Amestris, including Resembool itself. Not only had Winry lost her parents to the war, but their home town had suffered through a few bombings near the end of it. He and Al had spent a few nights camped out in the basement whenever the sirens went off. How could Mustang have possibly ended that?

“That makes no sense,” Ed said. He thought he saw Mustang’s lips twitch a little, but it was hard to tell in the poor lighting from the streetlamps. “Did you save a lot of people or something?”

“No.” Mustang paused. “Yes.” He gave Ed a sideways glance, his lips dragged into a half sneer. It wasn’t the usual smirk that Ed was used to being given. Instead, Mustang’s face was filled with amused contempt. Unusual as it was, Ed thought it fit the man and it almost made him shiver. “Depends on who you ask.”

Ed frowned. He could’ve equivocated Mustang’s vague responses as due to the alcohol, but he had a feeling that it was more because of the topic than anything else. The Ishval War was a touchy subject with most people, but especially with those that served during it. He knew that Lieutenant Hawkeye had served during the war as well, and she didn’t talk about her time in it. Mustang was a special case, being a State Alchemist. They weren’t put on the battlefield until near the end of the war due to an executive action by the Fuhrer. It was only then that they became weapons instead of merely scientists.

Mustang’s words came back to Ed. _Depends on who you ask._ Weapons weren’t meant to save people. They were built to maim and kill. Looking over at the other man, Ed noted that Mustang’s hands were in his pockets, but it was very likely that he had at least one ignition glove on. He’d learned the hard way that Mustang hid those things on his person just in case. With a flick of his fingers, Mustang could become one of the single most dangerous people in Amestris. It would only take a second for him to kill someone.

And Ed knew – this cavalier, smug, irritating bastard that teased him on a weekly basis and shirked his paperwork and flirted outrageously with women had killed plenty of people.

“You need to be more careful with yourself, Fullmetal,” Mustang said abruptly.

Ed scoffed. “Worried about me or how I’ll reflect on you?”

“I was like you before.” Mustang’s voice was so gentle that it took Ed off guard. He didn’t associate the emotion with the Colonel at all. If anything, the man had gone out of his way to be as rough with Ed as possible. He didn’t mollycoddle him or sugarcoat things. He didn’t give Ed the easy, safe assignments. No, half the time, it felt like Mustang was throwing him to the wolves. But Ed could not deny that he’d begun to notice a small pattern: many of the missions that Mustang gave him were in some way related to Ed and Al’s hunt for information on the Philosopher’s Stone.

Not knowing what to say, Ed merely looked at his superior officer as they continued to walk. Mustang didn’t look back at him, his eyes straight ahead and focused on the hotel coming into view. Ed couldn’t deny being curious about what Mustang had been like at his age. No doubt he’d been studying alchemy, but where, with who? Had he always wanted to join the military and rise to the top? What had driven him to become the maddening (and admittedly powerful) asshole that he was today?

“You have the entire world laid at your feet and nothing seems impossible. You have so much power right at your fingertips that you forget everything around you at times.” Mustang shook his head. “That much power can be blinding though. You’re not nearly in control as you think you are.”

“I can handle myself,” Ed interjected.

Mustang snorted. “One of these days, you’re going to go up against something that you can’t fight head on. You of all people should know by now that alchemy can’t solve everything – that sometimes it’s our very downfall.”

Despite himself, Ed’s cheeks colored again. Having his greatest failure thrown into his face so casually not only was humiliating, but it was like a slap in the face. However, when he opened his mouth to throw a furious retort back, he caught the look on Mustang’s face. It was no longer blank or dark; instead, Ed saw a man that had lived through exactly what he was warning Ed about. Mustang was not being a bastard; he was being understanding. He was not criticizing; he was _empathizing_. That was enough to shake Ed a little.

“I thought I could do anything with my alchemy. I thought I could save the world, protect the people I loved, do so many great things.” Mustang’s words resonated with Ed in a way that made him uncomfortable. Before he and Al had performed their failed attempt at human transmutation, Ed had been so certain that he could save their mother from death itself. Even now, after being dragged through the Gate of Truth, Ed was sure that he could so all those things that Mustang talked about. He could fight anyone and anything and he would win. How could he not after what he’d seen? “I was foolish, of course. Alchemy is dangerous for many reasons – because it is so tempting to us and has a power over us that we rarely see until it’s too late.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Ed told him. “I won’t make the same mistakes as you.”

Mustang hummed quietly. “That silver watch in your pocket might say otherwise.”

Clutching the watch defensively with his automail hand, Ed glowered and shot back, “If alchemy has caused you so many regrets, then why don’t you throw it away?”

“If you’re so afraid of becoming a human weapon like me, why don’t you?” Mustang countered coolly.

“I’ve got to get Al’s body back,” Ed mumbled, turning his eyes away and relaxing his grip on the watch. His heart began to steady in his chest again. Leave it to Mustang to cause him to get so heated at such a late hour. “If I have to drag my morals through the mud to accomplish my goals, then so be it. I don’t have time the luxury of taking the high road after what I did.”

Mustang nodded his head. “Then you have your answer.” He stopped once they were outside the front doors of the hotel, nodding at the man standing out front. “Though I should say, you don’t have to always take the most dangerous road either. Your goals hinge on you being alive to complete them, after all.”

“Is that your way of ordering me to stay in my hotel?” Ed asked sullenly.

With a smirk on his face, as if the conversation from a minute ago had never occurred, Mustang shrugged his shoulders. “A lot of pointless paperwork is involved when a soldier is killed in action.”

“Your concern is real touching,” Ed grumbled under his breath. Giving a half-assed salute to his commanding officer that was filled with more mocking than loyalty, he started to walk back in the hotel room. At least he could tell Al that he hadn’t walked around town on his own, at least for not the last part of his journey. He could stretch the truth a little so that his brother didn’t worry.

“Remember, Fullmetal,” Mustang called out, “if you die now, your story will probably be written off as a fluke and you’ll fade into history. You may have control over your life now, but you have no control over how people will view you when you’re gone.”

“I guess it’ll just depend on who you ask then.” Ed turned around and pointed an accusing finger at Mustang. “And if anyone asks me what you were like as a commanding officer, I’m going to tell them exactly what kind of bastard you really were!”

Instead of being angry that his drunken words of caution were being brushed off, Mustang actually laughed. It was different from the laugh that he normally gave when they were at headquarters in his office. It sounded like he was honestly amused, but also bitterness tinged its edges. “And I’ll tell people that their precious alchemy prodigy was a difficult, little shit.”

For once, Ed was not furious at Mustang’s disparaging comment about his height. Waving a dismissive hand in the air, he spun around and started for the stairs, not bothering to look back to see whether or not Mustang was watching him or had already left. It felt relieving to settle back into their usual routine of insulting one another. He did not want to admit it, but it had begun to feel disquieting to be so open with one another. Or rather, Ed had begun to feel strange about Mustang being so upfront with him about his past or his thoughts. He had started to realize in the past few months that his commanding officer wasn’t entirely what he seemed, either at face value or on paper.

As he walked up the stairs, Ed’s thoughts swirled in his head. What had Mustang done exactly in the past to cause him to think such things? It had something to do with the Ishval War; that much Ed was sure about. _Depends on who you ask._ Of course, depending on who you asked, Colonel Roy Mustang could be a very different person. To some, he was a brilliant alchemist; to others, he was a jumped-up Colonel. He was a cocky womanizer or a hardworking soldier.

He was the Hero of Ishval – or he was the Villain.

Ed hesitated upon reaching his hotel room, his hand on the doorknob. Sure, he may have said that he hated Mustang plenty of times, but he didn’t know if he could consider the man to be a villain or truly evil. But could good men not also be capable of evil? The silver watch suddenly felt heavy in Ed’s pocket. If he was called to do what Mustang had apparently had to do in Ishval, would he be able to do it? Would he be good then? Was he good now after what he had done?

If people were to know that he had lost his leg and arm – lost his little brother’s entire body – due to his own pride that he was strong enough to defeat life and death itself, what would they think of him then? Would he be known as an alchemist with brilliance beyond his years or would he be condemned for his arrogance? Ed was terrified of what Al thought of him half the time. If Al blamed him for what had happened… Would he one day tell the story of how his own brother had failed him?

The questions were almost enough to make Ed want to turn back around and hide in the stairwell, but instead he steeled himself and walked into the hotel room. He couldn’t hide from Al. He couldn’t hide from what he had done, just as Mustang didn’t. He had to use it to fuel himself to move forward every day. There was no looking back anymore for any of them. Alchemists did not have the luxury to look back on their failures with regret; they could only look forward to work on a success in the future.


	3. Highlights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, this song has little to do with the actual fic -- but it’s the sentiment that counts. This is a prequel to Drabble 100 (“Until the Day”), so it’s time to bring back the little Bug. I can just imagine Roy’s enemies sending him postcards and letters saying, “Never gon’ be Fuhrer now!’ when his and Riza’s insubordination comes to light. What an asshole move.

_“Have you read this?_  
_Alexander Hamilton had a torrid affair_  
_And he wrote it down right there”_  
\-- [The Reynolds Pamphlet](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjaiYmE7KTKAhVDrB4KHfOVDwAQtwIILzAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkOSCOw50kos&usg=AFQjCNG-rVMJt4luYIqMuLWA9-e4HIQu0A&sig2=R8ZYwIo1uiCKgFVmcoyB7g)

The sound of shattering glass from inside Roy’s office made everyone in the exterior office startle in their seats. Havoc cast the door a wary glance, sliding his unlit cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other with a flick of his tongue. Breda cleared his throat and forced his attention back on the paperwork before him, much more than he usually did. Falman blinked multiple times and shifted in his seat uncomfortably, unable to get hold of the same focus that Breda had. Fuery looked nervously towards Riza, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide with intent concern.

Taking a deep breath, Riza nodded to Fuery, giving him what she hoped was her most comforting expression, and watched as he slowly returned to his work. Once he looked away, she turned her attention to the door, her eyes locked onto the wood. Behind that door, Roy was in the midst of throwing what sounded like the most intense temper tantrum an adult could manage while at work. More noises were heard behind the door, making it sound like he was swiping things off his desk and stomping around the room. Every time there was a loud bang, the men with her flinched, but never once looked at the door again.

When silence finally settled in the room, Riza didn’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or worry that something even worse was going to happen. Roy had one pair of his ignition gloves always on him. She didn’t think that he would light his office on fire, but judging from the mood that he was in, she could not tell.

It went like this all the way until lunch. Normally, Roy stepped out to let them know that they were free to do what they wished, but when the door stayed decidedly shut, the men quietly chose to leave of their own accord. She didn’t admonish them or tell them differently. If she was any one of them, she would’ve done the same. The mess hall would have been much more pleasant and less tense than this place today. Unlike them though, she chose to stay in her seat. Someone needed to do damage control.

A hand on her shoulder brought Riza out of her daze and she looked up to see Havoc looking down at her. “I don’t think I’d wish this on my worst enemy.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Riza reasoned, straightening up in her seat. “The Fuhrer has been talking about stepping down soon and there has been talk about the General succeeding him. It’s probably just General Moore making a few snide comments that has gotten his feathers ruffled.”

Havoc smirked and nodded his head before walking out the door, but there was an uneasiness underlining his lips, like he didn’t quite believe Riza. Honestly, she didn’t really believe the words either. Moore had managed to drag Roy’s name through more than the mud before and he hadn’t trashed his office in response before. No, this was something else entirely, something more…personal, and she was secretly scared of what that might be after everything they had been through.

Once everyone was gone, Riza stood up and straightened her uniform. It didn’t fit her nearly as well as it once had, but she tried not to think about that. Her body had gone through quite a few changes in the past year and she had done her best to get back into her original shape, but it wasn’t exactly possible. Biology simply would not allow her to do that. She wouldn’t complain about that though. It was one of the last things on her mind as she stepped over to the door of Roy’s office and knocked on it.

“Come in.”

Roy’s voice was muffled, but the agitation was undeniable in its gruffness. When Riza slipped inside and locked the door behind her, she found Roy standing up and staring out the window. She had to repress the urge to scowl since the position left him entirely open and instead steeled herself for whatever he might throw at her. Instead of snapping or anything though, Roy remained silent and still, completely opposite of what he’d been for the past few hours before. His hands were clasped behind his back tightly, his hands formed into fists to the point where she knew his knuckles would be white under his gloves. His entire posture was stiff and uncomfortable.

He looked like he was a spring ready to explode at any second, barely contained and dangerous.

As she walked towards him, Riza opened her mouth to say something and then shut it. The entire room looked just as it had sounded, papers and books thrown on the ground. A lamp had been knocked over and broken. A vase that had once been filled with flowers was shattered, the flowers burned to a crisp and the water splashed on the wall and floor. He said nothing to her and he didn’t move to turn around to face her, which meant that he was hiding. And the only person that he could be hiding from was her. That thought alone took the air out of her chest, but she continued on.

Before she was able to latch onto his reflection, Riza noticed that there was only one thing left on his desk while everything else was strewn on the floor, a simple newspaper. Though she couldn’t read the writing, she found that every step she took was labored and heavy. Tension built up inside of her and her heart thumped painfully in her chest. The urge to turn on her heels and leave blared in her mind for the first time in her life. She wanted to go home; she wanted to ground herself in the truest and purest comfort in the world.

Instead, Riza was forced to stare down at the headlines on the Central Times frontline page: _Beloved General and Second-in-Command Skirts Anti-Fraternization Laws and Fosters Bastard Child_.

Riza sucked in a gasp of air, one of her hands involuntarily flying to her stomach. There was nothing there, not anymore, but the action was so hard to ignore after she had spent months wondering over her swelling belly when she had been pregnant. She gripped the material of her military jacket for a second before relaxing her hand and allowing it to drop to her side. Her eyes rose to Roy’s back. She didn’t need to read the article to know what it said, even if the reporter most likely didn’t have a single idea about what had gone on between them.

Because the truth was that the title was right. Regardless of who they were, regardless of what they had gone through, regardless of how much they had done to right their wrongs, regardless of their love for one another, they had thrown the laws of their government aside and indulged in one another. And despite their carefulness, fate had decided something different for them. Something was born of their deception and it was more than just an overthrown government this time. It was something on a much smaller and yet somehow no less important scale in their lives.

Clenching and then relaxing her fists at her side, Riza opened her mouth to speak, but Roy cut in before she could say anything. “Please,” he said, his voice sounding strangled, “don’t call me ‘sir’ or anything of the like.”

“What would you have me do?” Riza asked quietly.

Roy finally turned to face her. His face was screwed up in an expression of nothing but pain. She hadn’t seen him look like this since he’d burned her back. He didn’t regret what they had done – and he most certainly did not regret his role in it – but she could tell by that simple expression that he was upset about having hurt her. He was an idiot, of course. This didn’t hurt her, not directly at least. This would hurt him though – his public image, his bid for the candidacy for Fuhrer. She’d had no illusions what this would do to her when it finally came out and had already thought of ways to circumvent it hurting Roy. He was so idealistic…

“We both knew that this would happen one day,” Riza told him, taking a step closer to him. “It’s a price that we said that we were willing to pay.”

Shaking his head, Roy pressed a hand to his head. “The things they said about you in the article…”

“Just words.”

“They more or less called you a _whore_ , Riza,” Roy growled, throwing his hand down. He stomped towards his desk, snatching the paper into his hands so tightly that she thought that he’d tear it. Disgust filled his voice.  The paper shook in his hands. He wore a look on his face that reminded her of just how overly protective he was. If she didn’t calm him down, he’d storm down to the newspaper station and do more than threaten the reporter responsible for the article.

“I’ve been called a lot worse,” Riza pointed out mildly. Being a female in the military and especially the top sniper didn’t afford her a lot of friends. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d been called Roy’s whore. She could handle it; Roy, the boys on the team, most definitely Rebecca, and even the Elric brothers could not.

“These bastards... They slander you. ‘ _Nothing more than a simple-minded floozy deceived by Mustang’s playboy ways or a clever trick to snatch Mustang in her claws and tie him to herself?_ ’ They drag your honor through the mud. ‘ _Using her body to manipulate her commanding officer into taking her to the top with him_ ’? They have no idea what they’re talking about! ‘ _Bastard orphan begets bastard child_ ’? They speak nothing but–”

“The simple truth,” Riza interjected.

“Filthy lies!” Roy snapped, waving the paper in the air like a fist.

Riza straightened up, gathering all the strength she could muster as she faced Roy with an impassive face. “Did I not give birth to your son?”

The pure rage fell away from Roy’s face at the drop of a hat, leaving a pained expression on his handsome features. His dark eyes shined with anguish. She thought his lip was close to trembling. He dropped the newspaper on the desk. In all their years together, she had never seen him like this. When the Promised Day had come to an end and he had found himself blinded, he had pretended as if not even his imminent dismissal would stop him. When Hughes had been murdered, he’d done his best to hide his grief from her, blaming the rain and hiding his face from her. When he had burned her back, he had done his best to take care of her and respect her wishes. When her father had died, he’d hid behind his strength to keep her afloat. When he had left for the military, he had kissed her hand and smiled sheepishly and made light of things.

There was none of that here. Roy’s emotions were laid bare, like a corpse on Knox’s table in the morgue, and it threatened to take her breath away.

“Perhaps we were wrong to have tried to hide it for so long,” Riza said, her eyes dropping to the ground. “There was only so much we could do before my insubordination came to light.”

Roy swung around the desk and came upon her, putting a finger under her chin so that he could lift her face. Her eyes connected with his. There was so much fire in them, enough to make it feel like a fire was being lit under her own skin. “ _Our_ insubordination. This isn’t all on you.” Despite the heat never leaving his eyes, he smiled at her. “You may have kissed me first, but I was the one that wouldn’t let you go. I couldn’t stand to, not after…” His fingers slid from her chin, up her cheek, and slid over her lips. She nearly shuddered. “I regret nothing. You must know that.”

“Neither do I,” Riza replied softly.

“But the idea of these fools slandering your good name…” Roy’s hand fell away from her and he shook his head, like he was trying to shake the words out of his head. He was such a good man. He had not stopped to think about what this might do to him. The moment her name had been brought up in the article in a negative light, he had lashed out furiously.

Taking one of his hands in hers, Riza settled an intent look on him, pressing her lips together. “It doesn’t matter. We need to worry about you.”

Roy gave her a sheepish look. “I suppose I should be thankful that Aidan isn’t old enough to read. It’ll be years before my son knows how I shamed his mother in the public eye.”

Unable to stop herself, Riza’s gaze turned soft. She couldn’t keep it from falling that way, not with the way that Roy was looking at her, his hand turning in hers so that he was gripping her fingers desperately in a way that reminded her of the way Aidan would grasp her fingers. The difference was that Roy’s hands were strong and big whereas Aidan’s were still small and chubby. Roy gazed at her with the same eyes as Aidan, a swirling dark pool that she found herself lost in time and time again.

Turning her attention to the newspaper, Riza nudged it and read a few lines. “A torrid affair? This article makes it sounds much more exciting than it is…”

“Every second with you is exciting,” Roy told her, his voice so earnest and heated.

When Riza turned her eyes to him, she saw how even now, though he was furious about the article, Roy was hungry for her, the very thing that the article slandered him for. He didn’t care. Whenever they had been together, he had never been ashamed or regretful about how much he wanted her. He poured all of his passion into her. He was a man that did not allow himself to hold back once he started. Even when she’d been swollen and heavy with pregnancy, he had been enamored by her.

“Excitement aside,” Riza sighed, “this will…cause the problems we were worried about.”

“I don’t care,” Roy insisted, trying to press his forehead against hers.

Riza pulled away from him though. “Yes, you do – and you should.” Roy pulled away from her, his eyes turning to the bookshelf behind her. He was only trying to defend her honor, but this was something that they could not hide from, not anymore. They had tried for so long, but in the end, their insubordination had caught up with them, and she was not about to let their selfishness hurt their goals, no matter how much she did not regret what they had done. “You broke the law, Roy. You slept with your insubordinate – and most importantly, you impregnated her and hid it. That will be a dark mark on your record.”

“One they could surely overlook, as I did help save the country,” Roy countered.

“One that will be there regardless,” Riza responded. “If you cannot follow the simplest of rules, who is to say that you won’t break others once you’re in command of the government?”

An almost affronted look crossed Roy’s face. “You know I wouldn’t–”

“I know,” Riza interrupted gently, squeezing his hand. “But the same people that wrote this article won’t.”

He was such a good man. He only wanted to do right by her. When she had told him that she was pregnant, he had been so elated. For a moment, it hadn’t mattered to him that it might throw a wrench into his plans. He hadn’t cared a lick about that. Though he could not come out about being the father, he had done everything in his power to make things comfortable for her. And when Aidan had been born… Riza could not describe the look on Roy’s face when he had first seen his son. The entire team had been in the room with them, so that it would look more appropriate, but they had all given him space.

Riza could still remember those first, quiet, shaky words that Roy had whispered, _“Look at my son…”_

No matter that their son had been born out of an affair, Roy had loved both him and her unequivocally. Their times together should have been nothing more than illicit trysts, but it had been more than that. As he had told her more than once, he couldn’t say no to her, even though she had offered him ways out time and time again. They could not be a family in public, but Riza could not deny somehow loving him more when the nights of them sneaking around to be in each other’s amorous embrace turned in Roy sneaking into her place to read bedtime stories to their son and pull her into his arms late at night to just sleep together.

“The article doesn’t even hint that I’m in love with you,” Roy mumbled.

“I don’t care what the article says about me,” Riza told him.

“And our son?” Roy asked her. Fire tinged his words again. No doubt the callous words against her had angered him, but anything said against an innocent  child that was barely two years old was like to have infuriated him. If she wasn’t so worried about keeping him in check, she would have been enraged herself. “‘ _A byproduct of illegal and sordid activity, swept under the rug like dirt_ ’?”

Riza tried not to flinch. It was a disgusting thing to say about someone that was the light of her life. Aidan would not know about this article and she would shield him from it and any other press for as long as she could. But right now, it was something that neither she nor Roy could avoid. Oh, god, the men were eating lunch at the mess hall. If anyone said anything to them about the article… She could just imagine Havoc flying off the handle and launching himself at another lieutenant for saying anything out of line about her or Aidan. The man was Aidan’s godfather, after all, and an unofficial uncle. He had become protective of children even more so after the birth of his own son.

“We’ll get through this,” Riza swore.

“Riza…” This time, when Roy leaned to press his forehead against hers, she didn’t stop him. “I never meant to hurt you – either of you.”

“We couldn’t hide this forever,” Riza said. “It was bound to come out eventually.”

It had honestly come to light later than she’d expected. Whether Roy had realized it or not, Riza had planned for this exact scenario for when it happened. He wouldn’t like it, just as she didn’t, but it was the only one that would ensure that Roy would be able to continue on with his goals as unhindered as possible. Right now, Roy Mustang was the target. The focus needed to be taken away from him. If the blame could somehow be transferred, if the focus could be shined on someone else…

Riza breathed deeply. It wasn’t going to be pleasant. If she was going to take the on the focus of this scandal, she would lose the privacy that she coveted so much. And it would be doubly difficult to take all the attention while shielding Aidan as well. She would not subject him to such a thing. Even if it meant having Rebecca and Havoc watch him for a little while as she dealt with things, she would do it, no matter how much those nights alone would wound her. She would shoulder anything if it meant protecting Roy’s reputation and his goals to better the government, along with her son and his future.

 _“His poor adjutant”_ indeed.


	4. I'll Make a Million Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I’ve been thinking about this for months. I talked about it a little with @but-i-am-hellbound and ever since then it’s been on my mind since. This is like the sweetest song ever in the musical and it makes me cry every time. And then I started thinking about Roy and Aidan and, well, it’s all downhill from there. It’s a prequel to Drabble 100 (“Until the Day”) from my 100 drabbles series, "you pull me through time" and a prequel to the last chapter here, among others, but I think the sentiment of this one really ties in with that fic in particular. This is so cheesy and it’s more about Roy being a dad than Royai, but you all know how I operate by now.

_“You will come of age with our young nation_  
_We’ll bleed and fight for you; we’ll make it right for you_  
_If we lay a strong enough foundation_  
_We’ll pass it on to you; we’ll give the world to you”_  
\- [Dear Theodosia](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvjMN6zSVFQg&t=YWI3Nzc3NjY0YjJhZDZiZDU5ZDk0NzlhNzhmYjljNDdiNDU5ZmM0MCxMckhpSjVNbw%3D%3D)

 

Setting the pen down, Roy ran his hands down his face. Finally after a week of not bothering to shave, scruff was beginning to show. He’d have to get rid of that in the morning, lest he wanted Riza to glower at him all day in the office. He grimaced at that thought, rubbing at his upper lip for a second. She was coming back to work tomorrow and that meant there would be no more excuses for him slacking. He figured the only reason she hadn’t said anything about it sooner was because she’d been too tired.

Newborns didn’t exactly go together with a good night’s sleep.

With his brain too foggy to think clearly, Roy put the paperwork back into a folder and turned off the light at the desk. Hers was so much more immaculate than his, which admittedly was strewn with books and loose leaf papers with all sorts of notes, codes, and ramblings written on them. After yawning and stretching, Roy started back for the bedroom. They had moved her desk and most of her office things into the living room area when they had transformed her small office into a second bedroom.

Upon slipping into the bedroom, Roy spotted Riza’s prone, sleeping body. She was curled up underneath the blanket on the edge of the bed, as if anticipating his arrival even in her sleep. The sight of her caused him to sigh quietly. It would probably be a while before he would be able to stay the night again. His heart skipped a beat at the thought. Her being off work for maternity leave had given them some leeway, allowing them a little more freedom. She still helped out with paperwork and other things while not at the office, which meant he had genuine excuses to stop by her place. And he’d learned a long time ago how to sneak around. With her back at work though, there would simply be too much attention on her. They would need to put space between them again to be safe.

A weak noise that sounded like a whimper distracted Roy from his disgruntled thoughts. He looked back into the hallway, but it was quiet once more. Just as he was about to dismiss it as his imagination, he heard the noise again, this time much more distinct and louder. When he heard Riza rustling in the bed and groaning in her sleep, he glanced back at her quickly. She went still again, letting him know that she was still asleep, but likely would wake up any second if the noise came again. Though he was still relatively unsure and even insecure about his role, Roy knew what he needed to do.

Quietly shutting the bedroom door, Roy tiptoed to the second bedroom and slipped inside. Considering that it hadn’t originally been meant to be a bedroom, the room was small and sparsely decorated. Riza didn’t have a mind for interior decoration anymore than he did. Catalina had done most of it, having had practice since she’d had her son with Havoc a little under a year before Riza had hers, along with Fuery, who had been all too eager to help out and chip in. Honestly, nearly everything in the room had been bought by their colleagues and friends. Roy wasn’t sure that Riza had had to buy anything with everyone doting on her when she was expecting.

The crib in the corner of the room held the most precious thing in the world. Roy thought that he would never love anything more than he did alchemy - and then Riza had steadily wiggled her way into his heart, like she had always been meant to be there. He thought that nothing would hold his passion like her, alchemy, or his ever growing desire to make it to the top. Those had been his sole focuses for so long that considering anything else had been strange.

When Riza had told him that she was pregnant, his entire world had been rocked. He felt like he was standing on the shakiest ground and could fall at any minute. Him, a father? No, no way, he couldn’t be a father. That life wasn’t meant for him. He couldn’t be what Hughes had been. He couldn’t imagine reading bedtime stories or trying to force a fussy child to eat mushy food or changing diapers or anything like that. He tried imagining PTA meetings with his child’s teacher or dropping them off at school. Kissing Riza in the morning while she made breakfast before work. Cuddling on the couch together as a family. Domestic life had never been his style. Where in his life would he fit those things?

Even stranger though, the moment he’d started to think about all those things, he couldn’t stop. Scenarios that had once felt so foreign to him unless he was playing uncle to Elicia suddenly found their way to the forefront of his mind, except instead of Elicia, he began to picture a daughter that looked like him or a son that looked like Riza. Without any warning, one day while he was at work, he looked out of his interior office at Riza, who was just beginning to show, and he realized how much he wanted those things. No, he more than wanted them - he needed them. He wanted desperately to be a father who could beam with pride at his kid’s first steps, a father who would sit at the table and help his child with math so simple that it would feel like a relief.

A father who would be there for his child every step of the way.

Roy’s stomach twisted as he looked down at his son. He couldn’t be there for Aidan in the way that he wanted, at least not right now. Both he and Riza had come to the conclusion of what they would have to do. Roy had other promises to live up to first. He had other and older goals that needed to be fulfilled. He swore in his heart that he would be there for his son, even if it wasn’t in the way that he wanted, but he wouldn’t abandon his son. He would never leave him behind.

His father hadn’t been around for him, having died so long ago that Roy could only vaguely remember the man’s face. Roy hadn’t looked like the man at all, from what he’d seen in old, faded pictures, having taken after his mother’s distinct Xingese looks. Aidan was the same way. He looked nearly identical to the one baby picture Madam Christmas had of Roy. Only a few months old, the baby boy already had a mop of unruly black hair on top of his soft head, a pale complexion that would burn in the summer sun if not careful, dark slanted eyes, and thin mouth. He did have a chubbier face and belly, but that was only excepted of a baby that seemed to drink all the milk that Fullmetal had refused growing up.

In the crib, Aidan was wiggling about, still half asleep and fighting with himself. Since he’d started to move more and roll onto his belly on his own, Riza had stopped swaddling him, but that meant that he tended to wake himself up by inadvertently smacking himself in the face. It was kind of funny, except when it happened at three in the morning. Of course, since he was Roy’s son, he also had a bad habit of staying awake at odd hours  of the night as well and taking random naps throughout the day. They would be cursed with a child that had Roy’s same sleeping habits. Lucky for Riza, she was already used to it, but it didn’t make things much easier.

Knowing that his son was a ticking time bomb, ready to cry the second he fully woke up, Roy awkwardly reached down into the crib and pulled the baby up into his arms. He seemed to like it more when he woke up to someone already holding him than alone in his crib. “Sh, sh, it’s alright, Bug,” Roy whispered as he positioned the wiggling baby in his arms and against his chest. Aidan did squirm about like a little bug whenever anyone but Riza held him, which was why Roy had started calling him that in the first place. It just felt…right. They both knew that Aidan would not be able to call Roy “Dad” for a while, and so it gave him peace to have something that was just theirs, father and son’s.

Aidan whimpered a few more times, sniffing horribly like he was about to cry. His dark eyes spun around the room as he tried to get his bearings straight until he was able to latch onto Roy’s face. Slowly but surely, as Roy bounced him around in his arms and paced the small room, Aidan began to calm down. Roy breathed in a sigh of relief when Aidan laid his face against the collar of Roy’s shirt, even if a bit of dribble did get on it. At least he slobbered less than Black Hayate had when the dog was a puppy.

Carefully, Roy lowered himself into the chair in the corner of the room. It was where Riza usually sat down to feed Aidan if he woke up in the middle of the night. Aidan didn’t seem to be hungry though, just more in need of a comforting presence. Roy could understand that. He wondered if Aidan was ever scared when he woke up alone in the dark or if he was too young to understand such concepts yet. At only a few months old, he already seemed extremely attached to Riza, preferring her over everyone else, including him, but that was probably normal. After all, Riza was the center of his world right now.

Roy smiled. _You and me both, kid._

More awake now, Aidan started to make unintelligible noises. It would be a while before he could speak, as all the books that Roy had read during Riza’s pregnancy had told him, but that still didn’t make Roy any less excited. He liked the imagine that Aidan was talking to him in his own language. For the most part, he was a very quiet baby - he didn’t cry anywhere near as much as Havoc’s son Brandon or Elicia had - but with a few people and Black Hayate, he would babble about excitedly. Roy considered himself privileged to be one of them. It filled his heart with pride every time Aidan would look at him and begin to make noises when he was normally so quiet and shy.

When Aidan leaned back, trying to gain his balance with Roy holding his head carefully, he reached out to place a chubby hand on Roy’s face and made another noise. Roy grimaced a little. “Yes, I know. I’ve got to shave or your Mommy will do it for me when I’m asleep. I hope you never want to grow a beard because it will be impossible.”

One day, in the far future, he and Aidan would cram into a bathroom as Roy taught him how to shave his face. He could just picture Aidan slathering shaving cream all over his face in imitation of Roy. Better than what he had done. When he was eight, he’d shaved his legs because that was what all his sisters did. He couldn’t remember his aunt laughing so hard when she’d caught him. He hadn’t known any better, seeing as how he’d lived in a bar with a bunch of women. He’d teach Aidan though; he’d be there for him.

“I promise you, Aidan; I’ll be the father to you that I never had,” Roy said firmly. Sure, Aidan couldn’t understand a lick of what he was saying, but it made Roy feel better to say it out loud. The way Aidan looked him in the eyes though, he could only hope that his son could feel the strength of his words or could somehow hear the love in them at least. “I know it won’t seem like it at times and it’s going to be strange. I know that it might seem like I’m not here or that I’m gone, but I swear, everything I do, everything that I’m going to do, will be for you. I’m going to make things right. I’m going to build this country into something better. I thought I was just fighting to protect others and fix the past, but… It’s time I work to brighten the future, for you, for your generation.”

He saw it so clearly now. The sins of his past, the wrong done by his alchemy, the blood on his hands. All of it had been necessary. Who knows what would have happened to Amestris had he not done those things? If the guilt and shame had never threatened to crush him, would he have fought so hard to make things right again? He would bear the weight of every awful thing he had done, he would bleed and fight, he would break himself again and again, if it meant that his son would never have to do the same. He destroyed and he would rebuild the nation until it became the bright world that his son could live peacefully in. He would carry the world so that his son would not have to do so in the future.

Roy would reach his goals so that Aidan would not be left with the burdens of his parents’ pasts. It would be wrong of him to leave his son to clean the mess that he had made. Everything he had to do made so much more sense. It wasn’t just him and Riza anymore. It was them, it was Aidan, it was their family. It was Fullmetal’s kids and Havoc’s. It was this generation that would one day replace them, and Roy would be damned if he didn’t leave something good behind. He had been given the frayed edges of a rope ready to snap to work with and had nearly died for it, lost the love of his life, had his sight taken away from him. He would not leave his son that.

“I’ll do it,” Roy promised, “I’ll make it all right for you. Everything I did wrong, every sin I made, I’ll do whatever I can to fix things.” He smiled weakly as his son silently watched him. “Although I can’t promise that I won’t make any mistakes along the way. You’ve unfortunately got an idiot for a father.”

Aidan suddenly smiled brightly, one of those open-mouthed gummy smiles that seemed uncontrollable, and let out a giggling sound as he pawed at Roy’s face again with his chubby hand. It blew him away, taking the breath right out of his lungs. Aidan may have looked like a mirror image of Roy, but whenever he smiled so openly like this, it reminded Roy only of Riza. She was so reserved, but whenever she smiled with nothing holding her back, it was like looking into the sun on a clear day. It was brighter than any transmutation and Roy knew in his heart that he would do everything in his power to ensure that his son’s future was just as bright.


End file.
